Everything about Mu Cephei totally explained
Mu Cephei (μ Cep / μ Cephei), also known as
Garnet Sidus, is a
Red supergiant star in the
constellation Cepheus. It is one of the
largest and most
luminous stars known in the
Milky Way.
History
It was named Garnet Sidus by
Giuseppe Piazzi in his
Palermo Catalogue, a catalogue of stars. In the 1783 edition of the
Philosophical transactions,
Sir William Herschel noted one star which was "a very fine deep garnet colour, such as the periodical star ο ceti". It appears
garnet red due to its
spectral class of M2Ia.
Garnet Sidus is more popularly known as "Herschel's
Garnet Star". An alternative name
Erakis in
Bečvář's star catalogue is probably confused μ Cep with μ Dra.
Mu Draconis had previously called
al-Rāqis [ar-rá:qis] in Arabic.
Properties
A very luminous red
supergiant, Mu Cephei is one of the largest and brightest stars visible not only to the naked eye but in the entire Galaxy. It is best seen from the Northern hemisphere from August to January.
The star is approximately 1,420 times larger than our sun's solar radius, and if it were placed in the Sun's position, its radius would reach between the orbits of
Jupiter and
Saturn. Mu Cephei could fit over 1 billion suns into its body. Only five known stars (
VY Canis Majoris,
KW Sagitarii,
KY Cygni,
V354 Cephei and
VV Cephei) are believed to be larger than it.
Mu Cephei is a variable star and the prototype of the class of the
Mu Cephei variables. Its apparent brightness varies without recognizable pattern between +3.62 mag and +5 mag in a period of 2 to 2.5 years. Mu Cephei is 38,000 times brighter than the Sun, with an absolute visible magnitude of M
v = −7.0. Combining its absolute visible brightness, its infrared radiation and its interstellar extinction gives a luminosity of around 350,000 solar luminosities, making it one of
the most luminous stars known. Its distance isn't very well known. Parallax measurements or distance estimates in the scientific literature give values between 390 and 1,600 parsec.
Mu Cephei is now in the dying stage of stars. It has begun to
fuse helium into
carbon, whereas a "healthy"
main sequence star fuses hydrogen into helium. The helium-carbon cycle shows that Mu Cephei is in the last phase of its life and is possibly about to go
supernova (in astronomical terms, of course: at least some million years). When a star goes supernova it's destroyed, leaving behind a vast hydrogen cloud which, for a star as massive as Mu Cephei, may be centered on a
black hole.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Mu Cephei'.
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